Morning journal and courier., 1887-02-19
Saturday, February 19, 1887.
THE AMERICAN BOARD.

SdtuE usaSs Au"Ay AOS AoSss
 THE AMERICAN BOARD.
 Its Action tn the Hume and Morse
 Cases-A Letter from Rev. Dr. Smyth
 Of Center Church-The Boards Posi-
 tion Sharply OverhauIed i'm Boston.
 Yesterdays Boston Advertiser has the fol- lowing letter from Rev. Dr. Newman Smyth, of this city, and in a half column of edito- rial comment the same paper strongly en- dorses Dr. Smyth's position and criticisms as set forth in the letter:
 The prudential committee within the same week have voted that under instructions from the board given at Des Moines they
 could allow MT. Hume to return to India,
 but under the same instructions they could
 not appoint as a missionary MT. R. 0. Morse,
 student who had been strongly recon lnended by members of the Yale theological faculty. The theological statement upon which the committee acted in the case of MT. Morse falls well within even the state ment which the committee gave to the pub lie of MT. Hume's theological views. MT. Morse holds that the Bible does not teach that all are lost who do not receive the gos-
 pei in this life, and says: "All mean with
 reference to the hypothesis of future pro-
 bation is that 1 do not know" In his letters
 to the committee he had said that he should
 expect the same liberty as is granted to min
 isters at home.
 What, then, were these instructions under
 which the committee say "they are not war
 ranted in authorizing" the appointment of
 MT. Morse ''upon the statement" which he had mades
 At Des Moines, Dr. Noble introduced a
 theological resolution by which he sought to commit the board to a disavowal of the doc urine of future probation, but under which he simply would instruct the committee to exercise great care in selecting missionaries for the foreign field. Even that resolution, had it passed, would have left large option to the committee. But Dr. Chapin substi- tuted for it a modified and very general reso- Iution, which he said was not "so objection able" Dr. Chapin's resolution disavowed no doctrine and set up no doctrinal standard; it was aimed against "certain tendencies" and what 'fsesmed" to some to be their appear ance, and admonished the committee to care fully guard the board ''from any commit tai to the approval of that doctrine" To send out missionary who holds the hypothesis of future probation is not com initial of the board to the approval of it.any more than to appoint Dr. Goodwin would be an approval of Second Adventism. Presi- dent Hopkins, in putting the motion, de- clared that it was not theological resolu- tion, and upon that declaration and under standing the vote was taken. It was not 'Etheological' in the sense that it put the board, to quote from President Hopkins language, "in an attitude of producing an ex-cathedra judgment on @ theologica l question" Had it been understood as i'm posing 8 new doctrinal test, the yeas and nays would have been insisted upon.
 The committee, moreover, seem to have overlooked the fact that at the time, on the r11o off of fhah arI hair oft expressively called to the point that the res olution did not cover the case of the student from New Haven. In speaking upon President Chapin's motion I asked for an explicit declaration of what in structions the board intended to give to the committee, and insisted that if they meant to the rejection of the young men whose cases had been reported they should say so in plain, unambiguous words. (See ''The great debate" p. 59.) The board were asked to make their meaning plain, if such were the intention, by using the language of the home secretary concerning the decisive ness of this life in all cases.
 The board did not use that language. This is just what the board by it's resolution did not say. And no gentleman of the pruden tial committee in response to the request rose to say that the resolution meant to con- vey such instructions. No member of the board said so. It was not said at Des Moines. ! 6l HOW S0CE0tdEy A1Oou, 6S CioIh of the prudential committee, in his official communication respecting MT. Morse uses this expression, which neither he nor anyone else embodied in the res olution, or used in interpretation of the reso- lution at pes Moines. What right have they now, in letter to 8 candidate, to put an in upon resolution which they did not, then challenged to do so, openly put upon it at Des Moines?-an interpretation which do not believe the board, even in the excitement of that hour, would have 50 far lost its self possession as to put into explicit resolutions and instructions. Such con- struction is unhistorical; it is as unhistorical toward Des Moines as it is unprophetic toward Springfield next October.
 The prudential committee may be proper ly thanked for one service which they have rendered, even at the expense of historical truth and at the cost of their own consist ency. They have drawn a definite and dis tinct line. They have, as they understand it, instructions which permit them to melled, but which forbid them to appoint man who simply says, with regard to proba- tien, 'I do not know" The issue is thus plainly put at last before the board and our churches. Must all missionary candidates accept Secretary Alden's dogma of the abso- lute decisiveness of the present earthly life in all cases? Dr. Alden supposed this dogma to
 
 without ofense, under cover of the authority of the board, he could quietly lnterpolate it into the Apostles creed. He failed to put this divisive dogma into the creed of the creed commission, he failed to secure it's adoption at Des Moines but he has succeed ed, to the great hurt of missions, in inducing a ma jority of the present prudential com rnittee to accept it as test of missionary appointment. This presents 8 definite issue. And there is but one possible end to the whole controversy. It cannot end in schism, for our conservative brethren, even should they wish to do so, cannot put us out, and we certainly do not want to put them out. It must end in toleration. The sooner it is settled upon the principle of toleratjon in things doubtful and unessential the less will be the expense to the board both in money and of men. The agi- tation will certainly be continued and in creased until all obstacles are removed which prevent Christian comprehension in mission ary work in che administration of our board. Then when the principle of Christian unity is fairly granted the discussion of the hy- pothesis of future probation will drop out of the forced and unnatural prominence which to it's free and scholarly discussion has given it and 1t will serve whatever pur- pose it may serve in the progress and con- servatism of our faith.
 Yours truly, NEWMAN SMITH.
 Last evenings Boston Herald commenting at length on the Hume and Morse cases ar- raigns the American board which it charges with ''moral perversity" and with being ''prostituted to party measures in a religious Mir. Hume is allowed to go back to India lowing to the pressure of pub lie opinion," and Con the same terms which he named, which are in no sense back down from his well known views as to the future probation of the heathen world" The Herald article says further: s'The prudential com mittee have seen fit to publish a garbled statement of what those terms were, and have compelled MT. Hume to expose their disingenuous conduct by publishing what he bis terms to be This is a part